Time to make your move, young man

When had Ye Shiyu gotten this app?

She remembered it was the morning of her second day after moving to Linmen. When she woke from a deep sleep and opened her phone to check the time, that purple app had abruptly appeared on her home screen.

Was something wrong with her phone? Or did it have a virus?

That was what Ye Shiyu thought, because when she pressed and held the app, she discovered there was no option to delete it at all.

Curious, she decided to open the app and see what was inside. But the instant she opened it, countless illusory messages flooded her mind, and words appeared magically before her eyes.

[Welcome to the Modulator App, host Ye Shiyu.]

[Current app level: 1-The level will increase with frequency and number of uses. As the level rises, attributes such as app effectiveness and duration will improve.]

[App effect: Individual Hypnosis-Places a single target in a brief hypnotic state. While hypnotized, the target will obey your commands completely. After the effect ends, the target will forget everything that occurred during that time.]

[Usage: Twice per week, lasting 15 minutes each time. Simply form the desire to use the app in your mind, then show your phone screen to the target you wish to hypnotize.]

[Precautions]

[1. Do not reveal the app's existence.]

[2. The app will appear on the phone you use most frequently, but you must ensure the phone has power when using it.]

[3. Any delayed commands issued during hypnosis will not persist beyond the 15-minute limit.]

[4. Although the app will automatically correct inconsistencies in the hypnotized target's memories after the effect ends, ensuring they notice absolutely nothing unusual, the host must still remain wary of third parties. Please avoid making any mistakes that could expose the app.]

Ye Shiyu's pupils slowly widened. Her face was filled with disbelief as she stared at the last line of those illusory words, written in pink calligraphy.

[Please use it without any reservations!]

Could this just be a stupid prank?

Her phone definitely had a virus. Back home, Ye Shiyu had heard there was a lot of cybercrime like this in Linmen.

Only now, with Yan Huan's arrival, had she nervously used it for the first time, even disguising the process as "exchanging contact information."

If it failed and he looked confused, she would say,

"Sorry, I tapped the wrong thing."

Then she could just open plane.

But as she looked at the handsome boy standing motionless before her, his eyes completely vacant, Ye Shiyu's heart began beating faster and faster.

Thump. Thump.

Her heartbeat was as frantic as a rapid barrage of war drums, reflecting her disbelief.

"It actually... works!"

Meanwhile, watching the wide-eyed Ye Shiyu before him, Yan Huan realized that, like Bai Yi, this was probably her first time using a Modifier.

Thanks to his resistance, although he had felt a little uncomfortable when he first saw the app interface, he had now basically returned to normal.

There was just a slight tingling throughout his body, like the slowly fading sensation after hitting his funny bone. It wasn't very comfortable.

Yan Huan was a little speechless. To think he had held out hope because of Aunt Ye, believing Ye Shiyu might not have a Modifier, only to turn into A-Wei on the very first night.

And sure enough, these Modifiers all involved this sort of obscene, adults-only content.

All right, all right. So that's how you're playing it?

You started it!

Activating Perfect Facial Expression Control, he flawlessly acted out the dazed state of someone who had just been hypnotized, keeping his body completely still as well.

Ye Shiyu took a deep breath and turned to steal a cautious glance down the dim hallway.

After confirming that no one had noticed what was happening here, she gently pressed her hand against Yan Huan's chest, trying to push him inside so she could proceed in the enclosed room.

But touching him was like touching a burning-hot wall. Not only could she not budge him, his body heat made Ye Shiyu pull her hand back as though she had been scalded.

Were boys always this warm?

Accustomed to spending her time with cold dolls, she only now discovered the enormous difference between people and dolls.

What should I do if I can't move him?

Right, he listens to me now!

Remembering that, Ye Shiyu tentatively said to Yan Huan in a quiet voice,

"Go into the room."

"..."

Yan Huan immediately felt a faint tremor run through his tingling body, seemingly urging him to walk back into the room.

Keeping that vacant, dazed expression on his face, he walked back into the room himself, then turned to look at Ye Shiyu.

Ye Shiyu glanced toward the stairs again, then entered the room as well and turned to shut the door completely.

Click.

Apparently still feeling unsafe, she gave the lock a gentle turn and locked the door.

"Phew..."

Within the enclosed space, the girl's flowery scent drifted toward him, making Yan Huan instinctively search for its source before his gaze finally settled on her long black hair.

When Ye Shiyu turned around with a sigh of relief, Yan Huan hurriedly emptied his gaze again.

Now that she was effectively alone, Ye Shiyu's face finally lost its daytime expressionlessness and showed clear changes instead.

Her brows could furrow now, her snow-white skin seemed to have gained some color from her quickened heartbeat, and those eyes as calm as water could look someone up and down.

She was as vivid as someone who had suddenly stepped out of a painting into reality.

"Now, what should I do with you...?"

Rubbing her chin, she paced back and forth in front of Yan Huan. Apparently, she hadn't even decided what to do after hypnotizing him, and kept muttering to herself.

"Hypnotize him tomorrow and have him tell Mom to cut off contact? No, even if the app can correct his memories, Mom will keep calling to ask him about it... If something goes wrong and she notices..."

Yan Huan watched him, listening as quietly as a doll while secretly committing those words to memory.

"What if I hypnotize him into doing something bad in the house? Make Mom dislike him... Right... I'll do that... Besides, this guy must also..."

Ye Shiyu raised her head, seemingly having reached a decision, then suddenly turned to look at Yan Huan.

She approached Yan Huan in a waft of fragrance, looked at his face, and asked softly,

"What was your purpose in coming here?"

"To have dinner at Aunt Ye's house."

Hearing Yan Huan's utterly flat voice, Ye Shiyu opened her mouth, apparently not having gotten the answer she wanted. She considered her wording, then phrased her question differently.

"Then, what were you thinking when you came here?"

The question was still ambiguous. Even if he really had been hypnotized by Ye Shiyu, he probably wouldn't have known how to answer.

She really wasn't good at interacting with people. He could tell even from those few words.

Yan Huan's dazed eyes flickered slightly as he said,

"I was a little scared."

"Scared... What do you mean?"

Ye Shiyu froze, not understanding what Yan Huan meant at all, then heard him continue.

"I'm scared of dealing with people connected to my parents... Back then, right in front of me, they took my home and everything Father and Mother had away from me, as though I didn't exist... They were all Father and Mother's relatives and friends, so why... I don't know why it happened... I'm scared it'll be the same this time. It took so much for me to finally get out of the orphanage."

Ye Shiyu's fingers slowly tightened. Watching Yan Huan's face tremble even under hypnosis, as though he had sunk into some painful memory, she couldn't help saying,

"All right, stop. Don't think about it anymore!"

"Yes."

Yan Huan's expression slowly returned to normal, escaping that mire of pain and becoming hazy and dazed again.

Only then did Ye Shiyu let out a long breath, before muttering as though to herself,

"Mom would never do that..."

Although she said that, Yan Huan's seemingly heartfelt words appeared to have disrupted her thoughts, leaving her momentarily unable to remember what she had intended to do. She could only look up at him again.

Right, I need to add him on plane first. That way, once the hypnosis ends, the app should help his memories correct themselves.

Anyway, today was only supposed to be a test to see whether it worked. As for anything else...

There's plenty of time.

"Unlock your phone, open plane, and give it to me."

Yan Huan watched Ye Shiyu stand there thinking who knew what, but upon hearing her words, he still took his phone out.

He unlocked it with his fingerprint, revealing a home screen with a blue ocean background.

When he opened plane, Ye Shiyu was stunned by the densely packed chats and red notification dots.

Th-this many chats?

What were all these groups?

Student council general management? Mathematics 1001 group one? Martial arts club discussion group? Track and field club? Fencing group? Drivers' group? Mahjong group...

This was Ye Shiyu's first time seeing plane look like this. She usually had only a handful of chats, with her mother and Aunt Chen. Even when she had attended school back home, she had never joined her classmates' groups.

Ding!

Just then, Yan Huan's phone suddenly sounded.

"!"

Startled, Ye Shiyu hurriedly looked over and discovered that someone saved as "Vice President Sakuramiya," with a white cat avatar, had sent a message.

"There's something I need to discuss with you, President. Are you free right now?"

What should I do?!

Who was this now?

Ye Shiyu looked at the screen, then raised her eyes to Yan Huan, who stood motionless before her with a dazed gaze.

Ah, whatever. He can reply himself after the hypnosis ends.

She ignored it and prepared to tap "Add friend" in the upper-right corner.

Watching this, Yan Huan couldn't help feeling his brain suffocate on her behalf.

How about trying to have me reply for you?

Haven't you already hypnotized me? And yet you're just leaving me standing here pretending to be a doll?

Still, this also seemed to show that Ye Shiyu was different from a gentleman like Yan Huan, who had been immersed in such things in his previous life. She knew nothing about this, which was why her first attempt left her so out of her depth.

Just as Ye Shiyu's finger was about to touch "Add friend," the entire screen suddenly went black, then was taken over by a voice call interface.

Ring, ring, ring~

"Voice call: Vice President Sakuramiya"

*!!!*

Sh-she was calling?!

The suddenly enlarged white cat avatar startled Ye Shiyu. Hearing the noisy ringtone, she trembled all over, looking particularly flustered.

A guilty conscience came with wrongdoing, and that was precisely how Ye Shiyu felt as she did something bad.

She hurriedly reached out and pressed the decline button, cutting off the noisy ringtone.

Beep, beep.

"Phew..."

The ringtone finally vanished, and Ye Shiyu sighed in relief.

Then, to prevent the other person from calling again, she hesitantly typed into Vice President Sakuramiya's chat.

"Sorry, I'm busy right now and can't answer the phone."

There was no immediate reply. Thinking she had gotten through it, Ye Shiyu reached out to close the chat in the upper-left corner.

Just then, the other person's plane name changed to "Typing..."

Ding~

With the notification sound came a message containing only three simple words.

"Who are you?"

*!!??*

Ye Shiyu was so shocked that she froze, looking as though she had been dead for quite a while.

Hilarious.

Seeing her look as though she had been struck by lightning, Yan Huan almost lost his composure.

Just then, as sympathy surfaced in the deepest reaches of Yan Huan's dazed gaze, her tender pink lips actually began to pout. It was slight... but she really was pouting, as though she had suffered some enormous injustice.

Huh?

Only now did Yan Huan discover that Ye Shiyu could actually make the same expression as Ye Lan!

Vice President Sakuramiya, well done. Very well done!

Ye Shiyu shakily raised her hand to scroll through their previous chat history, trying to find the distinctive way Yan Huan spoke to this Vice President Sakuramiya. But all she saw were numerous call records.

No wonder she had called straight away!

As for the rest, they were all various documents issued by the school. Otherwise, the two of them had barely chatted?

Then how had she known from just one sentence that the person holding the phone wasn't Yan Huan?

N-never mind. I'll just let him deal with it himself.

Ye Shiyu chose to deceive herself, and also withdrew the message she had sent earlier.

"?"

After she did that, the other person sent another question mark. That question mark was like the Grim Reaper's scythe, terrifying to look at.

But Ye Shiyu had already pretended not to see it and exited the chat. She opened his plane QR code, scanned it with her own phone to add him as a friend, then tapped accept.

Ding~

Done.

"Phew..."

Ye Shiyu let out another sigh of relief and shut off Yan Huan's phone as though closing the gates to hell.

After finishing all of this, Ye Shiyu glanced at her own phone and discovered ten minutes had passed. Yes, an exceptionally long ten minutes.

That'll be all for today.

Looking at Yan Huan before her, she put his phone back in his pocket. At the same time, however, a trace of hesitation flashed through Ye Shiyu's eyes.

In fact, her mother had started asking around about Yan Huan several days before they came to Linmen, and naturally had shared the news with her. Besides, ever since she was little, her mother had told her about a very good friend she had.

Ye Lan had said so much, yet only now, face-to-face, did Ye Shiyu seem to understand this boy a little.

Perhaps he really was an outstanding person, and what had happened to him was pitiful, but...

The hesitation in Ye Shiyu's eyes was gradually swallowed by a certain desire. She picked up her phone again and said to Yan Huan,

"Sit here and don't move. When you wake up, you should forget everything happening now. And that's it."

"Yes."

Once Yan Huan sat down, Ye Shiyu turned away, unlocked the door again, and stepped outside.

"Click."

Yan Huan glanced at the doorway and stretched his tingling body, waiting for the Modifier's effects to wear off completely.

A few minutes later, the tingling drained from Yan Huan's body like an ebbing tide. Exactly fifteen minutes had passed since the hypnosis began.

In an instant, an extra memory appeared in his mind.

In that memory, Ye Shiyu came and knocked on the door. After he opened it, she took out her phone and added Yan Huan as a friend, exchanged a few casual words with him, then turned and left.

For some reason, he felt a little sleepy after returning to the room, so he sat down to rest for a while and nearly dozed off.

In his groggy state, he heard a message come in from Vice President Sakuramiya on his phone, but because he was too sleepy, he declined the call and sent a message he would never normally have sent.

After receiving Vice President Sakuramiya's puzzled question, he belatedly unsent it, and only now had he fully woken up.

Yan Huan mulled over the extra memory in his mind and could not help feeling somewhat horrified.

The crucial part was not just that Ye Shiyu's Modifier could add memories, but that this extra memory actually made Yan Huan feel these were things he really would have done-and had done.

The memory perfectly covered up what had happened over the past fifteen minutes. Yan Huan felt that without his resistance, he would have been one hundred percent certain not to notice anything amiss.

Only if an unaffected third party pointed out the contradictions between memory and reality might someone with a memory generated out of thin air begin to doubt it.

These Modifiers really are ruthless.

Yan Huan's expression grew more serious. As he examined his fully recovered hand, he sorted through the details of what had actually just happened.

It seems Ye Shiyu doesn't want me to stay. Or perhaps it's not just that she doesn't want me to stay-she goes even further and doesn't want me having any contact with Ye Lan.

Hmm, if Modifiers are connected to desire, then Ye Shiyu used hers to hypnotize me to satisfy some desire of her own, too.

Desire. Desire...

Yan Huan once again unwittingly recalled what Aunt Chen had mentioned earlier: Ye Shiyu had to write her name on everything.

He raised his eyebrows as an answer vaguely took shape in his mind, but just then, someone knocked again.

"Knock, knock, knock~"

Seriously? Again?

Yan Huan braced himself against the sofa, paused for a moment, then asked,

"Who is it?"

"Xiao Huan, it's Aunt Chen. I warmed up some milk for you."

"Coming."

Hearing that, Yan Huan relaxed completely and got up to open the door.

Outside, a smiling Aunt Chen held a glass of milk. Standing a short distance behind her was Ye Shiyu, likewise holding a glass of milk and looking at him expressionlessly.

There was a theory that criminals often returned to the scene of the crime to see how things were going.

Ye Shiyu was probably doing the same. She was likely checking whether Yan Huan had noticed anything amiss after the effects wore off.

"Here, both of you drink your milk. It'll help you sleep. I added a little honey. Give it a taste and see if you like it. If not, I'll leave it out tomorrow."

"No problem, Aunt Chen."

Yan Huan acted as though he had not noticed a thing about what had just happened. Seeing his normal expression, Ye Shiyu finally turned away silently with her milk, satisfied.

Aunt Chen added, "Take it inside and drink it, Xiao Huan. There's a toothbrush and toiletries in the bathroom, all new. Just tell me if there's anything else you need."

"Will do. Thank you, Aunt Chen."

"Get to bed early, Xiao Huan."

Yan Huan returned to the room with his milk, set it on the table, and took out his phone again.

First, he opened his chat with Ye Shiyu, whom he had only just added. Since they had just added each other, there were no messages.

He thought for a moment, then sent a message.

"Sister Shiyu, feel free to ask me if you have any questions about school later on."

He paired it with a smiling emoji that had carried an unspoken meaning in his previous life.

After a brief pause, she sent back an "OK" hand gesture.

It was a picture of sisterly affection and brotherly respect, all harmony and friendliness, as though that scene out of a Japanese anime had never happened.

Speechless, Yan Huan leaned back against the sofa and took a sip of milk. Then he suddenly remembered something and hurriedly opened his chat history with Vice President Sakuramiya.

There, a question mark still stood out conspicuously.

Yan Huan could not help chuckling. He opened the chat box and brought up his sticker list.

It contained countless neatly categorized sticker packs on every subject: cats, anime, panda people, animated GIFs-everything imaginable.

His finger scrolled swiftly and expertly, and he sent over a sticker of a sweating cat hanging its head. The text read,

"Sorry."

The other person was typing.

"Was someone else using your phone just now, President?"

An instant reply? Was she worried some thug had done me in?

He sent a nodding cat sticker. "Yep, yep."

"I'm at work. A friend replied for me. Something came up just now."

Come to think of it, do I use stickers too much? Vice President Sakuramiya saw through it immediately just because I didn't send one for once.

Well, Vice President Sakuramiya knows everyone on the leadership team very well. She has an excellent memory, so it's normal for her to be able to do that.

At that thought, Yan Huan typed a question.

"What was that urgent matter you mentioned earlier?"

Along with that message, he sent a cat sticker with a question mark.

The other person was typing.

But a long while passed without a message or a call-she preferred communicating with people over the phone. According to her, it was more efficient that way.

Just as Yan Huan was about to open some other group chats to browse while waiting for her message, she finally said,

"It's been resolved, President."

Yan Huan glanced at the chat box and sent the same nodding cat sticker again.

"That's good, then. Get some rest, Sakuramiya classmate."

"Okay."

The milk was finished, and his phone had been tossed aside. Yan Huan finally relaxed a little and stretched out on the sofa.

"Meow~"

The plump Meow-chan quietly appeared again, tilting its head beside him and looking rather worried.

Yan Huan glanced at it, reached out, and patted the sofa beside him.

Taking the hint, Meow-chan jumped up and nestled its soft, furry body into his arms.

Stroking its silky fur, Yan Huan gave a helpless smile.

"Looks like if I don't make a move soon, I might not have any way to survive down the line, Meow-chan."

"Meow~"

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